Postscript

Abstract

In the spring of 2004 a scandal shocked the world: violent pornographic images were accidentally released into the public. In Abu Ghraib, a formerly unknown prison in Iraq, young American soldiers staged violent fantasies of domination and submission in what some considered pornographic images, some considered fraternity behavior, and others considered torture. We became witness to a watershed moment, characterized by the meeting of official history and unofficial fantasy. These photos tied the military domination to the surfacing of continuing fantasies of orientalized homosexual desire that is humiliated by forced submission—again, in the most famous picture: to a cruel woman.